UNBIASED - July 11, 2024: AOC Introduces Impeachment Articles Against Supreme Court Justices, Controversy Over SAVE Act Explained, Biden Campaign Polls Harris/Trump Matchup, and More.

Episode Date: July 11, 2024

1. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Introduces Articles of Impeachment Against Justices Thomas and Alito; What Must a Justice Disclose? Who Governs the Justices? (0:37)2. Congressional SAVE Act Controversy Explained; Can Noncitizens Vote in Federal and State Elections? (9:12)3. Quick Hitters: US Intelligence Uncovers Russian Assassination Plan, US Military to Dismantle Gaza Aid Pier "Soon," Biden's Campaign Polls Harris/Trump Matchup, Jobless Claims Fall, Inflation Continues to Drop, and House Fails to Hold AG Garland in 'Inherent Contempt' (12:02)4. NEW: Question of the Day (15:17)Support ‘UNBIASED’ on Patreon.Watch this episode on YouTube.Follow Jordan on Instagram and TikTok.All sources for this episode can be found here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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call the Conax Ontario helpline at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased. Today is Thursday, July 11th, and this is your final news rundown of the week. By now, you know the drill, but if you love the unbiased approach that this episode provides, you feel more informed after listening, please go ahead and leave my show a review on whatever platform you listen, share this show with your friends, and if you're watching on YouTube, please go ahead and hit that thumbs up button and subscribe to the channel if you're not already. Thank you very much in advance.

And without further ado, we can get into today's stories, starting with some articles of impeachment. So Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced articles of impeachment against Supreme Court Justices Alito and Thomas yesterday. Three articles against Thomas, two against Alito. to disclose financial income, gifts, reimbursements, property interests, liabilities, or transactions, among other things, and two counts of failing to recuse himself from matters concerning his spouse's legal and financial interests before the court. The two articles against Justice Alito include one count of refusal to recuse himself from cases in which he had personal bias or prejudice concerning a party before the court, and one count of failure to disclose financial income, gifts, reimbursements, property interests, liabilities, or transactions, among other things. So as it

pertains to Justice Thomas, the first count focuses on his relationship with Harlan Crow. Harlan Crow is a real estate developer and a major donor to the Republican Party. And we know that over the years, Justice Thomas has flown on Crow's jets. He's been aboard Crow's yacht. He has stayed at Crow's private residence, private properties around the country. He has received many gifts from Crow, some of which have been reported, others not. But the question is, and it really boils down to what must be reported, because the fact is Justice Thomas is not the first justice to fail to disclose a gift, travel, or other perk, nor is Justice Alito. Justices Gorsuch and Scalia have faced similar scandals. Justice Sotomayor failed to disclose transportation and lodging from various law schools, although she corrected her records years later. Justice Ginsburg similarly amended her disclosure documents years after because she had failed to disclose a $4,500 opera costume that she received as a gift.

So what has to be disclosed and what happens if gifts aren't disclosed? Well, under federal law, specifically the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, which was enacted in the wake of the Watergate scandal, as well as the Ethics Reform Act of 1989, require federal officials to report income, dividends, most capital gains, significant debts, the purchase or sale of land, and gifts. However, there's an exception to the requirement of gift disclosure, and it's known as the personal hospitality clause. And what it says is that a federal official doesn't have to disclose gifts of food, lodging, or entertainment that is received as personal hospitality of an individual. So you can see how that exception could be used

as a loophole. In fact, both Justices Thomas and Alito alluded to this clause in their responses to the ProPublica reports last year, which called attention to their failure to disclose certain gifts. Now, here's the other thing. Under the Ethics in Government Act, there is an administrative body called the Judicial Conference, and it was established by Congress to administer the judicial branch. The Judicial Conference is responsible for obtaining, reviewing, and publishing the financial disclosure documents of justices and judges, as well as interpreting the federal law to address the specific needs of the federal judiciary. Under the judicial conference's guidelines, though, it's not the conference who regulates the Supreme Court justices. Specifically under Section 62065 of the conference's guidelines, they delegate the authority to

oversee the Supreme Court justices to the chief justice. They write that the guidelines apply to, quote, all officers and employees of the judicial branch. However, the judicial conference has delegated its administrative and enforcement authority under the Act for officers and employees of the Supreme Court of the United States to the Chief Justice of the United States. What this means is that the Supreme Court justices are not bound by the Judicial Conference's interpretations of federal law and therefore are not subject to the financial disclosure rules or interpretations. It's true that in 1981, the justices publicly agreed to follow the conference's interpretations. And just last year, the justices put out a code of conduct which reaffirmed their commitment to the federal statute governing disclosures, but because both of these

actions are voluntary commitments and not legal obligations, it's a gray area. Taking this one step further, this means that if a justice doesn't disclose a gift, the only person that can overrule that decision is the chief justice or the justice themselves can make an amendment. There's no real official governing or enforcement body. So over the years, the judicial conference has amended and refined its definition of certain financial disclosure matters like the definition of personal hospitality. But when Supreme Court justices aren't bound to it, the reality is it doesn't really have much of an effect on them. But that's also why there's been a lot of talk in the last few years about reforming

the court. So let's get back to the main storyline, which is that AOC introduces articles of impeachment against both Thomas and Alito. I already mentioned Thomas's articles stem from the relationship he has with Harlan Crowe, but there's more. The two counts of failing to recuse himself from matters concerning his spouse's legal and financial interests pertain to his involvement in both of the Trump cases this term. This is because Thomas's wife is a publicly known conservative activist, a supporter of Donald Trump. In the wake of the 2020 election, she sent many texts to Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, telling him to stand firm with Trump and calling the election a heist. So AOC's assertion here is that Thomas

should have recused himself from the cases dealing with Trump's presidency and Trump himself and the presidential immunity and eligibility on state ballots because of his wife's interest in the matter. The articles against Alito are similar, failing to disclose gifts from Paul Singer, a hedge fund billionaire and Republican donor, and for failing to recuse himself from the Trump case given his bias. So here's how impeachment works. Only Congress, per the Constitution, has the authority to impeach a justice, or a president for that matter, but we're talking about a justice here, so that's what we're sticking to. To do it, a member

of the House has to introduce articles, which is what AOC did. Then a simple majority of the House has to approve them. Given the Republican majority in the House, this isn't likely in this case, but anything can happen. Assuming the House passes them, let's just say, the justice is officially impeached. From there, it would go to the Senate, where the Senate would hold a trial on the impeachment. If the Senate were to vote to convict the justice or justices of impeachment, which needs a two-thirds majority vote, that's when the justice or justices would be removed from the bench. But like I said, all of this is highly unlikely.

It's likely it won't even get past the House. And even if it does, there's no way the Senate would get two-thirds of a vote. A little bit of history for you. There's only been one justice ever to be impeached. That was Justice Samuel Chase in 1804. He was impeached for refusing to dismiss biased jurors, as well as excluding and limiting defense witnesses in political cases. Both of those actions stemmed from his judicial position in a district court years prior. However, despite him being impeached, he was acquitted on all counts in the Senate.

He remained on the Supreme Court until he died in 1811. And then more recently, in 1969, Justice Fortas became the first Supreme Court justice to resign amid threats of impeachment. And in that case, he was accused of agreeing to act as a paid consultant to the family foundation of a man who was under investigation for securities fraud. But aside from those two instances, the introduction of articles of impeachment against a justice is a pretty rare action. Now we can move on to the second story of the day, which is the SAVE Act. I'm not going to spend a ton of time here, but I did want to address it

before we finish with quick hitters because I had a few people reach out wanting some clarity as to who can vote in federal elections and state elections and why the SAVE Act was passed in the House in the first place. So the SAVE Act stands for the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, and it essentially expands requirement to vote in federal elections to require proof of citizenship. Here's the thing, though. Non-citizens cannot vote in federal elections. Speaker Johnson introduced this bill because he says that despite it being hard to prove and despite not having the numbers and data, there are non-citizens voting in elections. This bill, though, is kind of like the Republicans'

version of the Democrats introducing the right to IVF bill. IVF is already allowed. Obviously, there's been discussion surrounding the legality of embryos in human life, etc. But most Republicans voted against that IVF bill because they saw it as a political stunt. They said, we already have a right to IVF. Why do we need this bill? That's how Democrats are seeing the SAVE Act. Given that it's already illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections, those who oppose the bill see no point in enacting it as a law because it would have no effect. Republicans do have the majority in the House, so the SAVE Act passed the House in a 221 to 198 vote. But it'll now go to the Senate where it'll likely be ignored and or rejected just because of the Democrat majority.

And even if it does pass the Senate, President Biden has already said he would veto it. But to answer the question of who can vote in federal and state elections, only U.S. citizens can vote in federal and state elections. The federal election question is a bit more straightforward because we actually have a federal law, which was passed by Congress in 1996, and it says that non-citizens cannot vote in federal elections. As far as state elections go, only seven states explicitly prohibit non-citizens from voting in state elections. But with that said, no state constitution explicitly allows non-citizens to vote in state elections. So currently there are no states that allow non-citizens to vote in state elections. There are some local municipalities

that allow non-citizens to vote, like the District of Columbia, San Francisco, as well as many cities in Maryland and Vermont, but no state currently allows non-citizens to vote in state elections. And non-citizens certainly are not permitted to vote in federal elections. So hopefully that cleared some things up for you regarding the SAVE Act, and now we can finish with quick hitters. According to five U.S. and Western intelligence officials, U.S. intelligence discovered earlier this year that the Russian government had planned to assassinate the CEO of the German arms manufacturer that has been producing artillery shells and military vehicles for Ukraine. Allegedly, the plan to kill the German CEO was just one in a series of Russian plans

to assassinate defense industry executives across Europe who have supported Ukraine in the war. But when the U.S. learned of the plot, it informed Germany, who then had security services that were able to intervene and prevent any attack. In other news, both the White House and Defense Department said today that the pier built off the coast of Gaza will cease operation, quote unquote, soon, but would not specify when. The pier has been inactive for quite some time because of rough seas, but the military did say at one point they were hoping to resume operations. Earlier this week, the plan had been to reinstall the pier for a few days just to move the final

pallets of aid onto the shore, and then they would permanently remove it after that. But the rough seas have prevented reinstallation, and it seems now that the military may give up shortly. A source has told the New York Times that President Biden's campaign conducted a survey last week which tested a head-to-head matchup between Harris and Trump. The source wouldn't say why the campaign conducted it or how they plan to use the results, but one source did tell ABC News that the poll was done because of Trump's recent attacks on Harris and that they

would be, quote, dumb not to adjust, end quote. In some labor news, the Labor Department reported today that jobless claims for the week ending July 6th fell by 17,000 from the previous week. That number is now 222,000, down from 239,000. And on top of that, the total number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits declined for the first time in the last two and a half months. And in some economic news, consumer prices rose 3% in June compared to a year ago. This is one percentage point higher than the Fed's target of 2%, at which point interest rates should start to come down. And finally, in some congressional news, the House rejected an effort to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in inherent contempt for failing to turn over the audio tapes of President Biden's interview

with Special Counsel Herr during that classified documents investigation. The contempt resolution would have required Garland to pay fines of $10,000 per day until he handed over the audio, but the resolution failed in a 204 to 210 vote. Remember, that is the audio that President Biden has asserted executive privilege over, so that's why Garland is not turning them over. Whether Biden can assert executive privilege over the tapes falls within a pretty big legal gray area, which no one really has the answer to. The Supreme Court has actively stayed out of matters involving executive privilege over congressional requests. So no one really knows if President Biden's

executive privilege is allowed to be asserted over the tapes, but that is why Garland is not turning them over. As a final note, I want to start ending each episode with a question of the day, just to get you thinking about the stories I cover. I mean, you could turn off this episode and just go about your day. That's totally fine too. You're still caught up. But something I've been thinking about lately is that we, especially here in America, don't really do too much thinking for ourselves. These days, we're constantly being told what to think or how to think by the media. Not me, of course. I would never do that. But there's consequences that come along with that. And one of the biggest consequences is that we lose sight of one of the most human traits that we

possess, which is to think, to think for ourselves and think critically. So with that said, I want to start finishing each episode with a question of the day. Nothing crazy. It's just to get you thinking. Even if you only take 10 seconds to think about it, I think it'll still exercise that part of the brain that we may not use as much as we could. So the question today stems from the first story, which was about the articles of impeachment against Justices Thomas and Alito. And my question for you is this. Do you believe failure to disclose gifts should be an impeachable offense? Why or why not? So it's do you believe failure to disclose gifts should be an impeachable offense? Why or why not? You're welcome to share your answers with me if you're listening on Spotify or YouTube, but no pressure. As I said, it's just to get you thinking. That's my only goal here.

That is what I have for you today. That was your final news rundown of the week. I hope you have a fantastic weekend and I will talk to you on Monday.